Rant: The punny guy on facebook

Every time I open up Facebook, there he is.  Mr. Punny.  Mr. "do Amazons swing Broad Swords?"

He's stupid, pseudo-intelligent, and a waste of my newsfeed space.  I hope he realizes that all those LOL's and ROFL's aren't people really laughing.  Unfortunately, there's plenty of those folks to fuel his humorous flames.

Maybe I'm jealous that his cheap kindergarten jokes can garner more attention than my reasoned questions posted out to the public.  Maybe I've got some sort of inferiority complex going on.  But dammit, is it really necessary or fair for one guy to make the world facepalm and groan every time he updates his status?

To said Pun-master:  Please stop and think about the rest of us before you throw up some more ornate word vomit next to your super-serious portrait online.   If you want an image of your face to always be associated with "I'm giving up giving up for Lent, but that means I still gave something up," great.  But honestly, do you want the only thing all your foreign friends and distant family knows you for to be really bad one-liners?  Do you?

Quick haiku night

I am oh so tired

World spinning, a top on end

puts me to sleep soon.

Everyone else here

both young and old, rich and poor

is snuggled in bed.

I really have to pack

clothes lie like broken roses

colors spread about.

My break is now finished

Pencil, paper, library

These are my friends now.

Search for a home, you

find a place to lie your head!

I like being free.

I've got the urge to travel again (or Morocco Part 1)

I've got the urge to travel again.
That jolt in my feet that pushes me out the door
           is most definitely trying
                      to shove me outside
                                and get me to see
                                          things that lie beyond my doorstep
                                                         that smells of soot, old snow,
                                                                         rubber boots, and salt

So I go
To Morocco.

Taxi! Two hundred  euro?  Twenty euro!
    on we go
           past national flags
                  casbah-looking buildings
                       arabesque arches loom everywhere
                              merchants hawk spices pungently
                                   a man with an orange cart, stares at me,
                                         calls me over to partake in his succulent feast
                                                 so bold, so sweet, so un-packaged and sans-cellophane

He's as boisterous as the fruit he hawks

I choose the man who looks like a beggar
       four or so scraggly teeth left
          a steel-wool beard hanging off limp jowls
               a robe that had seen better, more traditional days
                         he sells dates as wrinkled and dark as his face
                              I wonder where he sleeps at night (2 dirham's worth)
                                  If his stories are as rich as the fruit he sells (about a handful)
                                       his memories as detailed as the alleys of wrinkles on his face?

               
There are no street signs here.

Detroit: Pt. 2

I'm on Spring Break for the next 10 days or so.  That means I'll be slaving to get up to my "post-a-day" quota that's been neglected since early January.  Whatever I can write:  reviews, journalism, non-fiction, poetry, smoke-long stories, etc.  I've got to get back to the idea of using this blog as a practice tool.


Mogtaba Shirdel


Thirty-three times once more
beads slip through your fingers
a startling, worn red
on the calloused, yellow fingers

Yellow like the  books,
album covers that surround you.
Yellowed phones will never ring.
On the wall, it never rings.

This used to be your city.
This used to be your home.
This used to be a place that paid you rent.


Thirty-three times once more
Beads slipped through your fingers.
a startling, fresh red
against the latest paint on your walls.

Scents, so clean and new
In each home you created
Soon filled with life, with people
Soon killed by life, by people.

This was truly your city.
This was truly your home.
This was truly a place that paid.


Thirty-three times once more
Beads are slipping through your fingers.
a startling, worn red
against the dust-brown of the floor

 Kicked up by your shoes
 Bells ring against the door.
Someone's come in, only one today.
Someone's come in, you're not alone today.  

This is your city.
This is your home.  
This is where you pay your rent.




Check out where the subject came from at detroitblog.org  

Good little cigar tonight

[This is cross posted from Puff, where I wrote it]

I picked up a tin of CAO Flavours Cherrybomb Minis sometime last year on c-bid, and never really got into them. I think I've smoked two of them, and my girlfriend has smoked most of them-she really likes the sweet tips.

Anyway, it's a still, frigid night here in Grand Rapids, and I was toying between either finishing a half-bowl of Samuel Gawith, or having one of these after finishing a 4,000 word take-home test from hell.After trying to light that half-bowl and keep it going, well, I went with the CAO.

I'm glad I did.

I don't know if it was the cold, or the fact that the humidity in my flavored cigar tupperdor was fairly low, or just the fact that I wanted to smoke something fruitier and sweet, but it was good. Really good, in fact-way better than I had remembered them to be.

I avoided the overly-sweetened tip as much as possible (blegh), and still picked up on hints of sour cherries and black currants, with a subtle vanilla/cream flavoring that went really well with the smooth mildness of the Cameroon wrapper. If I exhaled through my nose, I got a nice blast of gentle peppery tobacco smoke, followed by more currant aroma. Even when I wasn't smoking it, the little wafts of smoke smelled like a good cigar had met an orchard.

The flavor wasn't near as cloying as the tin smell reminded me of. In fact, it was pretty damned good, and lasted me the whole half-hour walk through the woods. The few times I actually did get a touch of the sweetened tip on my tongue, it complemented the flavors nicely, like when a hint of sugar brings out nuances in tea sometimes.

So, am I surprised that I'm even writing this little review right now? Yes. Would I smoke another? For sure-it was everything I was looking for in my pipe tobacco tonight, and couldn't find.

I guess I'm a cigar guy at heart.

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